“Not yet,” he said in a throaty voice.

My sound of protest turned into an extended moan as he slid down, burying his mouth between my legs. His tongue was a sinuous, fiery brand that had me half sobbing from pleasure, and my right hand shot ever-increasing bolts of electricity into him as my passion reached the breaking point.

“Please,” I found myself gasping.

His low laugh teased my aching flesh. “You know that word doesn’t work on me.”

I was too frenzied with desire to let him draw this out. I flipped over, crying out when my abrupt move slammed his mouth against me and he grabbed my hips to hold himself there. Then, even as I was shuddering from the beginnings of an orgasm, I forced his head up and slid down at the same time, until our hips were lined up and I could stare into his now-emerald-colored eyes.

“Since you hate the word please,” I said, voice ragged from passion. “What about now?”

His mouth claimed mine at the same time that he thrust deeply inside me.

Chapter 5

Several hours later, we landed at a private airport in London, England. When Vlad’s new, sleek Learjet rolled to a complete stop, I let out the breath I’d inadvertently sucked in.

He glanced at me, his lips curling. “With everything else going on, you’re nervous about flying?”

“It’s not the flying part I mind,” I responded tartly. “It’s the crashing part I have issues with.”

This plane was new because Mircea had magically compelled Vlad’s pilots to crash the old one. We’d only survived because Vlad had torn open the side door and flown us away moments before impact. Vampires could survive a lot, but no one could live through a plane hitting the ground at maximum velocity.

“We tested everyone to make sure they’re not bound by one of Mircea’s spells,” Vlad reminded me. “Plus, he would never attempt to crash our plane while you’re still linked to him.”

“Hopefully, that won’t be for much longer,” I muttered.

There had been no new “messages” during the time it had taken us to fly to London from Romania. Not knowing what Mircea’s captors intended was sawing at my nerves. On the plus side, I wasn’t dead, so the mysterious sorcerers had to be taking Vlad’s threat against them seriously. On the negative side, we hadn’t been contacted to say that Mircea was being delivered with a big red bow, so whoever “they” were, they didn’t seem in a hurry to give Mircea up, either.

“Where are we meeting Mencheres?” I asked when Vlad opened the interior door that converted into stairs.

“Here,” an accented voice replied from beyond that doorway. Before I had time to recover from my surprise, a Middle Eastern man with waist-length black hair vaulted up the staircase.

Vlad embraced Mencheres, a show of affection he reserved for only a few people in the world. But Vlad had often referred to Mencheres as his “honorary sire,” so I wasn’t surprised when he also accepted a kiss on each cheek from Mencheres.

Then Mencheres turned his charcoal-colored gaze my way, and I wondered why he’d bothered to tamp down his aura to undetectable levels. Mencheres looked like an attractive man in his early twenties, but looking into his eyes was like staring through a time portal into the ancient past. He was so old; one of the famed pyramids in the Giza plateau had been his.

“Leila,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it because I was wearing my current-repelling gloves and thus couldn’t shock him from the simple contact.

“Thanks for coming,” I said, not adding, but I don’t know why you’re here. Mencheres hadn’t been able to break Mircea’s spell before, although he’d given it his best shot. Unless Mencheres had had a breakthrough since then, I didn’t know why Vlad wanted to meet with him.

“I was in New York, so it was a short flight,” Mencheres said, dismissing how he’d dropped everything to meet us here.

“Where’s Kira?” I asked when Vlad hit the button that caused the staircase to fold back into a door.

“Still there,” he replied, waving a casual hand. “I saw no need to interrupt her time with her sister.”

At the word sister, a pang shot through me. I’d promised my own sister, Gretchen, that once Vlad’s enemy Szilagyi was dead, she and my dad could return to a normal life. Then I’d had to go back on that promise as soon as Vlad had killed Szilagyi. Gretchen had not been pleased about having to stay in hiding indefinitely, and neither had my father.

I was distracted from thoughts of my family when Vlad ordered his pilots to take off. “Where are we going?” I asked, grabbing a chair as the engines roared back to life.

“Nowhere,” Vlad replied. “Just far enough off the ground that no one can overhear us.”

Mencheres settled into one of the plush seats. I sat down, too. This plane could hustle when Vlad wanted it to, and his pilots could obviously guess that Vlad was in a hurry.

“Want a drink?” I asked Mencheres, gesturing to the mini bar protected by a clear glass panel. Just because vampires needed blood to survive didn’t mean we skipped other libations.

He inclined his head. “Whisky, if you have it.”

Vlad gave him a sardonic smile. “From that provincial choice, I can tell you’ve been spending time with Bones.”

A smile ghosted across Mencheres’s lips. “If you two weren’t so similar, you’d likely be friends.”